


dream boy

by never_bloom_again



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_bloom_again/pseuds/never_bloom_again
Summary: spencer has the girl in the phone booth. derek doesn’t know how to live with everything moving forward around him.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 31
Kudos: 88





	1. heart destroyed

**Author's Note:**

> a short unrequited love drabble set after 8.04 god complex

Something about Spencer's behaviour had changed. Derek had noticed that very early on. Something was different, and the more that Derek thought about it, and saw the changes, the more he was convinced it was something good. Something good for Spencer, anyway.

When Blake came to him and told him about the girl and the phone box, it all made sense. He wanted to be overjoyed for Spencer, his best friend, who had finally found someone to be with. Yet Derek couldn’t help the pang of envy, of sadness that he felt whenever he thought about her, because she wasn’t him.

But he put on a face, he played up his happiness for his Pretty Boy - not his anymore, he had to remind himself - and congratulated him on finding a girl. He offered to listen if Spencer ever wanted to talk, even though every bone in his body screamed not to. This girl, who had captured his best friend’s attention, was already hurting him enough without Derek having to listen to Spencer speak about how much he loved and adored her.

He knew he was a horrible friend for not being able to support his friend in what could be his first, long term, happy relationship. He would have gone to Garcia in any other situation, but he couldn't here. He didn't need to hear her berate him for not being supportive enough, or her encouragement to tell him.

Anyway - she didn't know about his feelings, especially given that they would never be requited. There was no point in telling her.

No one needed to know how hopeless he was, having spent almost 8 years desperately in love with his co-worker, who had quickly become his best friend. No one needed to know that the whole reason he slept with all those women was to distract himself from who he really wanted to have lying beside him in his bed. No one needed to know that he would give anything, everything, for his Pretty Boy to be his.

And no one did know. He had kept it a secret from the people he considered his second family, he never told a single soul. It was sad, at least from a certain point of view. Derek knew he was isolating himself from everyone else, but feared the possibility of it no longer being something self-inflicted, because what if they hated him? Between liking men, and risking breaking up the team with feelings that he shouldn't have, the team wouldn't be being unfair if they did.

He was alone, with everyone moving on with their lives around him, maturing, settling down. Emily had her life in London, JJ had Will and Henry, Hotch had Beth and Jack, and Spencer? Well, now Spencer had this girl that he was so clearly enamoured with, leaving Derek with no one. He was nearing 40 years old, and had nothing, except his dog, his job, and his houses.

He couldn’t help but laugh at the bitter truth of his life. He had done so much when he was younger to make sure he got out of the streets of Chicago. And for what? At least if he were there he’d be with his mother and sisters, and he wouldn’t be so alone.

But then he wouldn’t have Spencer, and Derek wasn’t quite sure that he would be able to survive without him in his life, no matter how painful it was. Because Spencer was the boy he dreamed of, who was there for him, whom just the thought of could get Derek through the loneliness, even if he had to imagine that Spencer loved him as much as he loved the girl on the other side of the phone.

And Derek didn’t think he was strong enough to give that up.


	2. build your expectations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so has the oneshot i wrote now turned into three chapter? yes. i have no self control.

Alex Blake had not been a member of the team for very long, but that made it easier to see what was happening, if the rest of the BAU was anything to go by. She couldn’t believe that they were all so oblivious to something that was quite so clear to anyone with eyes.

Derek Morgan was in love with Spencer Reid. And it was tearing him apart. She wasn’t yet sure if Spencer felt the same back, although she suspected he did, despite the girl in the phone booth.  
She had her suspicions from not long after she joined the team. But it had been the quickly masked crestfallen look when Blake had told him of the call and the girl had given him away.

Morgan was never going to say anything, was something that she was certain of. It didn’t take a profiler to tell that he had commitment issues. In addition to this, Blake also thought that there may be some kind of underlying issue for him in regards to his attraction to men. He was given away by his closeted status which showed no signs of changing any time soon.

Although tempted to leave things be and let them play out naturally, Blake was concerned for her teammate. She was well aware of the destructive cycle that he was teetering on the edge of falling into.

“Morgan,” she called out, her voice echoing through the otherwise empty floor. 

“Yeah, Blake?” He called back from his office, and Alex began to make her way over there.

She looked at him, sitting there, the last one other than her, and she was only still there to wait for a chance to speak to him alone. Despite being so central to the team, part of the glue that held them all together, he was isolated from them, and from everyone else beyond that. He didn’t have anyone outside of the office, not that wasn’t family or a hook-up (not that she believed that he had as many of those as he liked to suggest).

She wasn’t sure how much the others noticed it - Alex thought it, much like the feelings between Spencer and Derek, were ignored, accepted as being the way things had always been, so ingrained in their behaviour that no one questioned it anymore. But she saw he took on much of the paperwork that otherwise would have fallen to Hotch, in order to lift the burden on him. She also noticed that despite it being a popular joke among the team that Morgan liked to slip Reid his paperwork, in the entirety of the time that Blake had worked for the BAU, she hadn’t seen it happen once.

If she was right about Spencer - which the more she saw the two of them interact, the more Blake thought she was - then maybe this would help put an end to the long nights at the office, the over-working himself, and halt him on the path leading to him inevitably burning out. Something needed to, and she hoped that this was it.

“You don’t do as good a job at hiding it as you think,” Alex said as she entered Morgan’s office.

The eyebrow quirk she received in return appeared on the surface to be a good cover-up, but when paired with the concerned look she got immediately, the reaction didn’t seem quite so stoic or confused.

“Morgan, we both know what I am talking about.”

Derek looked up at her, anger in his eyes masking the pain and sadness that surely lay beneath.

Still no verbal response.

“If you asked him, he’d say yes. He may adore the girl in the phone booth, but-”

“Enough!”

The slam of Morgan’s fists against the desk paired seemed amplified by the silence of the floor around them.

“You don’t know what you are talking about. Leave.”

It was tempting, for a moment. Alex had the option to turn around, pretend nothing ever happened, and save herself from the impending emotional outburst of her colleague. But she had never been one to back away from what she believed, from the right thing to do, so she wouldn’t.

“Morgan, you can’t keep going on like this, and you know it as well as I do. It’s destructive, and doing no one any good.”

Her colleague was heavily breathing from behind his desk, “You don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about what is happening here!”

His anger didn’t scare her. For all he acted aggressive with the unsubs they faced, he wasn’t the kind of person to hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.

“Just listen to me. I don’t want to mess anything up, for you, for Spencer, for the team. I just want to help you. It’s a dangerous thing you are doing, overworking yourself, trying to distract yourself from anything else because you are scared. It will end in you burning yourself out, and nothing good will come of that for anyone.”

Alex hated the look of resignation on Morgan’s face, refusing to listen to her words because he was unwilling to believe that things could change. She realised that the perception commonly held about the team was wrong. Spencer wasn’t internally just a frightened, sad little boy, not any more. He had found his footing, with everyone’s assistance, but in that time, Derek had lost his, and it had slipped the notice of most, if not all.

“I can’t force you to do anything, but please talk to someone, anyone. You guys have something great here, you are a family, and any one of these people will listen to and do their best to help you. I don’t know the rest of them as well, but I know Spencer, and no matter how much he may adore the girl in the phone booth, she will never hold a candle to you in his eyes.”

Although she wasn’t totally convinced he would, he no longer looked as pained, more pensive, and that was enough of a win for her, at least for now. She just hoped that something would come of it.

“Good night.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are appreciated <3


	3. i'm your boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, i don't love this, but i wanted to get this done because i have a oneshot planned that i really want to start writing (but i wanted to finish this first!) i hope you enjoy!

What Spencer hadn’t been expecting on his day off was a message from Derek, asking if they could meet up and talk. He had been looking at his phone, counting down the minutes until he could pick up the phone in the booth and call Maeve.

Normally, he would have left the message, attempting to ignore it indefinitely, at least leaving it until he had finished talking to Maeve, if not longer, but something inside him urged him to respond. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, although he did always have trouble not responding to Derek - he blamed it on the wistful part of him that still believed that maybe there was a chance that Morgan could like him back.

Spencer thought maybe it was the abruptness of the message - Derek rarely texted him to talk, and when he did, it was heavily disguised as a simple request to just hang out - or maybe it was guilt. Derek had been as supportive as always, constantly offering to be there to support him, even when Spence would barely tell him what was happening.

But whatever it was, he messaged back.

**Spencer:** Of course! I can be at your place in 30 minutes?

**Derek:** Thanks Pretty Boy, that sounds great.

Something was definitely wrong. Derek using proper capitalisation and spelling without any excessive emojis or punctuation was practically unheard of. If he weren’t so aware that Maeve would be waiting on his call, Spencer would have up and left, straight to help his best friend.

He picked up the phone and punched in the numbers, calling Maeve, before hanging up and waiting for her to return the call. This would be a short conversation - Spencer didn’t think he could handle not seeing Derek soon.

\--

Maeve, although disappointed he had to go so soon, was perfectly understanding of why Spencer needed to go. She had spent enough time listening to him talk endlessly about his co-worker that she got why he was leaving.

The moment he hung up, Spencer calculated whether it would be faster to call for a taxi or to just walk to Derek’s, quickly deciding that he was better off walking - it wasn’t too far, and it would be faster than waiting for a cab to arrive. 

As he walked, his mind raced as to what Derek could possibly want to talk about. Was he ill? Was his mother, or one of his sisters? Was he leaving the team? Nothing good seemed to be a possibility in his mind.

Thankfully, before long, Spencer was knocking on his best friend’s door. 

“Morgan?” he called out when he didn’t quickly get a response from anyone except Clooney, who Spencer could hear making his way to the door to greet him. After what was probably only seconds but seemed like ages, Derek came to the door, his face tinted slightly red and his eyes puffy. 

Spencer was wishing he had come earlier, regardless of Maeve. His adoration of her held nothing to the feelings he felt for Morgan.

“Hey Spence,” Derek said in a voice Spencer assumed was supposed to sound nonchalant, but due to the shakiness sounded weak.

Despite his general aversion to them, Spencer, having pulled the door behind him as he entered the house, reached out to hug his friend, hoping to offer some sort of comfort and reassurance that he was there for him, regardless of what was wrong.

“You wanted to talk?” Spencer asked as he pulled back, still thoroughly concerned about Derek, given that he never really cried, not when there would be someone else who would know anyway. 

“Yeah, uh,” he paused, contemplating what to say next. “How about we sit down?”

Spencer followed Derek over to the couch, where they both sat, on opposite ends, their bodies angled towards each other.

“Thank you for coming, Spence, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

_ You did,  _ Spencer thought,  _ but it’s you, so I really don’t mind.  _ He simply smiled though, knowing his friend would feel unbelievably guilty if he found out that Spencer had been going to talk to Maeve.

“I don’t really know how to say any of this, to be honest,” he laughed, but the smile never reached his eyes. “I’m not really one for this talking about feelings stuff. It’s normally easier to disregard it and move on.

“But I don’t think I can do that anymore. Blake pointed it out to me. Blake. When the newbie can tell something is wrong, well clearly something has to happen.”

Again, that laugh. The grin that never met his eyes. It was familiar, and as Spencer thought about it, it was a look growing increasingly common on Derek’s face. How did he miss this?

“Y’know, I didn’t want to tell you this, even after she pointed it out. You have the girl in the phone booth, and you’ve been so happy recently, and I don’t wanna fuck that up for you.”

_ Just by being you, you have ruined any chance of anything between me and Maeve,  _ Spencer wanted to say,  _ But you could never fuck things up for me intentionally, and I will always listen to anything you have to say. I’m sorry I never offered. _

But he didn’t. Derek had to say what he needed to say, and if Spencer interrupted, there was no guarantee he would keep talking. As he had said, he wasn’t one for deep emotional talks.

“Everyone on the team has a life outside of the job, except for me. Everyone has at least someone else to keep them sane. I don’t have that, Pretty Boy. I just have you. And now you know. And I know that I am probably going to lose you know, that I have most likely fucked everything up, but I- You needed to know.”

Spencer was pretty sure that his jaw had dropped open some time in that speech. His brain seemed to fly out of his ears or something, along with his ability to correct Derek, and tell him just how wrong he was.

Emily had once said that looking at a pretty girl had slashed his IQ from 187 to 60. But that was nothing compared to hearing his best friend, his crush, his… something, profess that he felt something non-platonic at some level towards him.

In a desperate attempt to regain control of his ability to regain his brainpower, in order to speak, and breathe, and exist, Spencer tried to shut his mouth and formulate what he wanted to say.

He was unprepared. There was no formula for this, no sure-fire way to guarantee that the words that came out of his mouth would be the right ones. But he would try his best. He had to. For Derek.

“Thank you for telling me, Der. I- um, well-”

“Spencer, you don’t have to say anything, you can leave if you want. I hope I didn’t make you too uncomfortable, but if you need me to take some time off, or anything at all-” 

Before he could finish apologising, and attempting to unnecessarily make amends, Spencer cut him off, much the same as Derek had done to him.

“Just give me a chance to think. I believe that my brain function has dramatically reduced as a result of shock,” he paused for a moment, realising that wasn’t what he wanted to be saying, “But anyway, I think you are jumping to conclusions. Because there is nothing in what you said that makes me uncomfortable, except for the fact that I never noticed that you were hurting.

“In fact, I am quite glad to hear what you had to say. I’ve actually wanted to hear you say something like that to me for quite some time.”

Derek looked incredulous, his jaw dropping in an excellent mirroring of Spencer’s previous expression.

“Pretty boy, but what about your girlfriend?”

“If you mean Maeve, she is just a friend. Not like you.”

There was a moment of silence, before Derek moved closer.

“Does that mean I can kiss you?”

Spencer didn’t take the time to reply, instead closing the gap between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!  
> i love you all, and appreciate the comments and kudos you give me!

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! should i write a second part?  
> talk to me on tumblr @prettyinactive <3


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